Marisacat

Spring… 20 April 2009

A flamingo chick in Hanover, Germany, seeks its mother’s protection at the zoo. The first chick to hatch at the zoo in six years [2006] it is now a week old [Jochen Luebke/EPA]

We are in one of our heat waves. They used to last a few days at most, in spring and fall… in recent years they last for weeks. And show up thru the summer as well. Weather reports seem to say this one will break soon.

MR. GREGORY: Cuba and a potential thaw between U.S. and Cuba relations has really dominated the summit business there, even though it hasn’t officially been on the agenda. This week the administration eased up some of the restrictions on travel between Cuban-Americans going back to see relatives and also the flow of money, sending money back to relatives back in Cuba. Cuba has also signaled that it’s willing to have a more open dialogue with the Obama administration, and increased calls for the U.S. to lift the embargo against Cuba. This is where the politics meets the economic. Under what circumstances would President Obama lift the 47-year-old embargo?

DR. SUMMERS: That’s way down the road, and it’s going to depend on what Cuba did–Cuba does going forward. You know, what the president announced this week is what he’s been talking about for two years. It’s a set of measures that are grounded in American interests, that are grounded in morality, letting families get back together, together again. Cuba’s known what it needs to do for a very long time and it’s up to them in terms of their policies, their democratization, all of the steps that they can take. And we’ll have to see what happens down the road.

MR. GREGORY: What is the economic case for lifting the embargo?

DR. SUMMERS: Obviously it’s, it’s desirable to be able to trade in as many directions as possible. But fundamentally, David, this is an issue that’s going to get decided on the basis of Cuba’s behavior, on the basis of the steps that they, that they choose to take or that they choose not to take in terms of their policies in this hemisphere. And it’s about really whether they want to rejoin the community of nations in Latin America or not. And we’ll have to see, we’ll have to see what they’re prepared to do. The president’s decisions are really going to be grounded in what’s best for the United States.

The president’s decisions are really going to be grounded in what’s best for the United States.

hmm.. I had not figured that last line out. How did I miss that?

We are in such a FUCKING MESS from pursuing our own interests – or what they relentlessly sold to us as our “best interests”.

Clue: It did not work. Did. not. work.

ObRama loved to invoke Lugar and Coburn on the election trail. So sweet. An Indiana Republican (fine, they have to come from somewhere, LOL) and a really nasty piece of R merchandise from OK. But you’ll never hear ObRama mention that Lugar sent him a letter some weeks ago, advocating lifting the embargo.

No siree.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a draft report Monday saying it is time to reconsider longtime U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba.

“After 47 years … the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of ‘bringing democracy to the Cuban people,’ ” Lugar, R-Indiana, wrote in a letter that accompanied the report.

“The current U.S. policy has many passionate defenders, and their criticism of the Castro regime is justified. Nevertheless, we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests.”

Lugar’s letter preceded a 21-page draft report by the Republican members of the committee titled “Changing Cuba Policy — In the United States National Interest.” …snip…

***

I heard another interesting tidbit over the weekend.. accidentally catching the Matthews half hour Sunday show… with Katty Kay, Ignatius of the Wapo… Helene Cooper of the NYT and ….. Sully. Frankly they were congealing in front of me.. so I don’t know which one said it, but one said the WH is mounting a hard push back on Krugman. Driving home, apparently, that if we were to follow his idea of “nationalising” the banks, it would mean a “Dow at 3000″.

“No offense to Middle America, but if someone went to Columbia or Wharton, [even if] their company is a fumbling, mismanaged bank, why should they all of a sudden be paid the same as the guy down the block who delivers restaurant supplies for Sysco out of a huge, shiny truck?” e-mails an irate Citigroup executive to a colleague.

“I’m not giving to charity this year!” one hedge-fund analyst shouts into the phone, when I ask about Obama’s planned tax increases. “When people ask me for money, I tell them, ‘If you want me to give you money, send a letter to my senator asking for my taxes to be lowered.’ I feel so much less generous right now. If I have to adopt twenty poor families, I want a thank-you note and an update on their lives. At least Sally Struthers gives you an update.”

It is difficult to sympathize with these people, their comments laced with snobbery and petulance. But you can understand their shock: Their world has been turned on its head. After years of enjoying favorable tax rates, they are facing an administration that wants to redistribute their wealth. Their industry is being reordered—no one knows what Wall Street will look like in a few years. They are anxious, and their anxiety is making them mad.

Their anger takes many forms: There is rage at Obama for pushing to raise taxes (“The government wants me to be a slave!” says one hedge-fund analyst); rage at the masses who don’t understand that Wall Street’s high salaries fund New York’s budget (“We’re fucked,” says a former Lehman equities analyst, referring to the city); rage at the people who don’t “get” that Wall Street enables much of the rest of the economy to function (“JPMorgan and all these guys should go on strike—see what happens to the country without Wall Street,” says another hedge-funder).

A few weeks ago, I had drinks with a friend who used to work at Lehman Brothers. She had come to Wall Street in the mid-eighties, when the junk-bond boom spawned a new class of globe-trotting financiers. Over two decades, she had done stints at all the major banks—Chase, Goldman, Lehman—and had a thriving career directing giant streams of capital around the world and extracting a substantial percentage for herself. To her mind, extreme compensation is a fair trade for the compromises of such a career. “People just don’t get it,” she says. “I’m attached to my BlackBerry. I was at my doctor the other day, and my doctor said to me, ‘You know, I like that when I leave the office, I leave.’ I get calls at two in the morning, when the market moves. That costs money. If they keep compensation capped, I don’t know how the deals get done. They’re taking Wall Street and throwing it in the East River.”

Now, a lot of people in New York have BlackBerrys, and few of them expect to be paid $2 million to check their e-mail in the middle of the night. But embedded in her comment is the belief shared on Wall Street but which few have dared to articulate until now: Those who select careers in finance play an exceptional role in our society. They distribute capital to where it’s most effective, and by some Ayn Rand–ian logic, the virtue of efficient markets distributing capital to where it is most needed justifies extreme salaries—these are the wages of the meritocracy. They see themselves as the fighter pilots of capitalism.

Wall Street people are not moral idiots (most of them, anyway)—it’s not as if they’ve never pondered the fairness of their enormous salaries. “One of my relatives is a doctor, we’re both well-educated, hardworking people. And he certainly didn’t make the amount of money I made,” a former Bear Stearns senior managing director tells me. “I would be the first person to tell you his value to society, to humanity, is far greater than anything that went on in the Bear Stearns building.”

That said, he continues, “We’re in a hypercapitalistic society. No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee. We have ex-presidents who cash in on their presidencies. Our whole moral compass has shifted about what’s acceptable or not acceptable. Honestly, you can pick on Wall Street all you want, I don’t think it’s fair. It’s fair to say you ran your companies into the ground, your risk management is flawed—that is perfectly legitimate. You can lay criticism on GM or others. But I don’t think it’s fair to say Wall Street is paid too much.”

Well I read that congress, almost the first thing, whipped out that tax affect on charitable giving. Think it stays as it was. Hardly matters. Foundations and other charities ahve cut back anyway. Loss of capital, or so I read. What of their 50 year plans. :lol:

There is some idea, with some, that as times worsen they should up giving, but ti is just a faction. it’s all about the TAX DODGES, which are intact. Gates and Buffett will be happy to tell you.

I spoke with my brother and his wife a week back – both have higher up positions at major US NGO’s. And while they thought they would be OK about 4 months ago, it now looks like both will be asked to do unpaid furloughs – the extent is unknown at this point. But both organizations have had to scale back budgets in the hundreds of millions.

Wall Street’s nagging fears about the financial system resurfaced on Monday, curbing the momentum of a dizzying bear-market rally. Even as the banking giant Bank of America posted big profits, investors fretted about losses and other write-downs that could be lurking.

And as the focus of earnings season shifts from banks to non-financial institutions, investors were bracing for lower profits and falling revenues that would reflect how the toll of the recession and last fall’s financial crisis had spread to industrial companies, retailers and others.

Stock markets dropped in the opening minutes of trading and ground lower throughout the day, blunting the spirit of cautious optimism that lifted the major indexes off their worst levels in a dozen years.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 289.60 points or 3.5 points at 7,841.73 in a sell-off that cut across all sectors. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 4.2 percent or 37.21 points at 832.39, led by losses in financial stocks. The technology heavy Nasdaq dropped at 3.8 percent, or 64.86 points, at 1,608.21. ..snip…

It’ll go up tomorrow! Tomorrow, tomorrow, is only a day away!

Or, someone let the air out.

“Nobody’s expecting big earnings,” said Don Bright, partner at the proprietary trading firm Bright Trading. “People are more or less settling in, going back to a buyer’s strike. I just think people are going to back off. We’ve had a pretty good run.”

European shares finished the day substantially lower with the FTSE 100 in London down 2.4 percent and the DAX in Frankfurt off 4 percent.

He also tells Bloomberg that even if Goldman pays back the TARP, it will be far from a market-based company thanks to all the other aid programs it is participating. “This is not private enterprise,” he says. “This is just hidden forms of government subsidies.”

Speaking of… IOZ has three in a row… one of which is on marriage. What a hoot!

This is the most hilarious thing about what we now call conservativism. It proposes itself as a traditionalist bulwark of institutions against the tidal encroachment of The Now and yet views the values and mores of past societies with all the fidelity, respect, and verisimilitude of A Knight’s Tale.

The other two are, one on the strip search case before the SC… and one on torture.

As debased, perverted, and violent as Americans and America are, we retain a moral priggishness that delays and prevents the full public airing of what we do; we cheer fictional depictions of torture (yeah, Jack, get ‘im) even as we deny that we’d ever torture anyone. Even those who really, really want to break out the thumbscrews and iron maidens can’t get themselves into gear, and the pro-torture (or pro-more-torture) advocates endlessly consume their own tails, arguing that we should torture more, and more often, because after all we do not torture.

***

Other than that, we might or might not have a loose gunman on a Napa Co campus. We await updates… newsbreaks to follow!

National Union chairman Ya’acov “Ketzele” Katz sent a letter to White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel last week admonishing him not to forget his Jewish and Israeli origins.
White House Chief of Staff…

Katz’s missive came in response to a reported verbal exchange between Emanuel and an unidentified American Jewish leader.

Katz claims that in a private meeting with the unnamed leader, Emanuel said, “In the next four years, there will be a peace agreement with the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it does not matter to us who is the prime minister.”

In the letter, a Hebrew version of which was provided to The Jerusalem Post by Katz’s parliamentary aide, Katz wrote:

“For many Israelis, this report is a cause for worry because it reveals a condescending attitude toward our prime minister and Israeli public opinion. This is an attitude that Israel does not expect from a real friend such as the US, and all the more so from an Israeli Jew who has succeeded in being appointed White House chief-of-staff.” …snip…

Seems to me we have assisted Israel to destroy Gaza.. and prevent its rebuilding. I doubt we give a flying hoo hoo about “two state” lies. One way or the other.

Universal health coverage in the form of Medicare eligibility narrowed the health gaps between Americans of different races, ethnicities, and education levels, a new study from Harvard shows. The results are seen as part of the national debate on revamping healthcare to cover uninsured Americans.

Disparities between people of different socioeconomic groups persist through middle age, with some groups healthier than others. Then, after age 65, when near-universal Medicare coverage kicks in, “we found a reduction in disparities,” said Dr. J. Michael McWilliams, lead author of the study appearing in tomorrow’s Annals of Internal Medicine.

Previous research by McWilliams and others has shown that people with insurance are healthier than those without it. The people most likely to lack coverage are black, Hispanic, and have less education.

The battle has ground on for 20 years. In 1989 and again in 1994, a clear majority of nurses at a Louisville, Ky., hospital signed cards saying they wanted a union. But each time a majority of the nurses later voted down the idea when it was put to a secret ballot.

Organized labor points to the fight at Norton Audubon Hospital as proof that America’s labor laws need to be overhauled: judges ruled that management had prevailed by illegally intimidating and firing nurses.

Nurses who want a union plan to try again, and they had expected a Democratic president and Congress to retool labor laws to make it easier to win. Instead, in Louisville and around the country, organized labor may be facing a major setback in the most contentious fight over labor laws since the 1940s.

Right now, unions seem to lack the 60 votes needed to block a Senate filibuster against the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill that would give workers the right to have their union recognized as soon as a majority signs cards calling for a union. The change would make it easy to bypass secret-ballot elections, which are traditionally harder for unions to win.

With Congress returning Tuesday from a two-week recess during which unions deluged the airwaves with advertisements supporting the bill, labor leaders voice confidence that Congress would still enact some far-reaching legislation this year to make it easier to unionize — and they are discussing making some modest changes in the bill to help firm up support. In recent months, corporate interests have lobbied vigorously against “card check,” as the bill is known, because it would most likely enable unions to add millions of members and increase labor’s clout in Washington and at bargaining tables nationwide

labor leaders voice confidence that Congress would still enact some far-reaching legislation this year to make it easier to unionize — and they are discussing making some modest changes in the bill to help firm up support.

maybe time nurses and others face that congress, “hope and change” and union leaders are complicit against voters and union membership.

Due to the lifting of the foreclosure moratorium at the end of March, the downward slide in housing is gaining speed. The moratorium was initiated in January to give Obama’s anti-foreclosure program — a combination of mortgage modifications and refinancing — a chance to succeed. The goal of the plan was to keep up to 9 million struggling homeowners in their homes. But it’s clear now that the program will fall well-short of its objective. (Legislation for cram-downs, that is, allowing judges to reduce the face-value of the mortgage, is still bogged-down in Congress. Most economists believe that cramdowns are the only way to keep people from abandoning their homes when they are underwater on their loans.)

In March, housing prices fell faster than anytime in the last two years. Trend-lines are now steeper than ever before, nearly perpendicular. Housing prices are not falling, they’re crashing and crashing hard. Now that the foreclosure moratorium has ended, Notices of Default (NOD) have spiked to an all-time high. These Notices will turn into foreclosures in 4 to 5 months time creating another cascade of foreclosures. Market analysts predict there will be 5 million more foreclosures between now and 2011. Soaring unemployment and rising foreclosures ensure that hundreds of banks and financial institutions will be forced into bankruptcy. 40 percent of delinquent homeowners have already vacated their homes. There’s nothing Obama can do to make them stay. Worse still, only 30 per cent of foreclosures have been relisted for sale suggesting major hanky-panky at the banks. Where have the houses gone? Have they simply vanished? …snip…

What is being talked about out here, aside from the lifting of the moratorium is a cascade of “unemployment foreclosures”. (Whitney quotes at length from a SFGATE article on CA forelosures.)

Whitney goes on:

[T]ax revenues are already falling sharply across the country as the recession deepens. In fact, Bloomberg News reports that “State and local sales-tax revenue fell more sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time in the past half century”… (Corporate and personal income taxes are also declining at a record pace.) This makes it impossible to predict the ultimate cost of the crisis. But what makes it even harder is that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner refuses to remove toxic assets from the banks balance sheets using the usual “tried and true” methods.

A recent report from a congressional oversight committee (The [Elizabeth] Warren Report) revealed that there are three ways to fix the banking system; liquidation, reorganization and subsidization. Geithner has rejected all three of these preferring to implement his own make-shift Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) which is thoroughly untested, has no base of public or political support, and is clearly designed to shift the toxic debts of the banks onto the taxpayer through publicly-funded non recourse loans. (Geithner’s plan will allow the banks to establish off-balance sheet operations so they can buy their own bad assets from themselves using 94 per cent public money) The whole thing is a obvious swindle papered-over with gibberish.

So far, less than $10 billion has been transacted through Giethner’s PPIP; a mere drop in the bucket. …snip…

Antigone
I know that I please where I am most bound to please… (Antigone)

We pretend an event horizon between youth and old age, but in our oldest fictions – the ones where the division is most clear, it also becomes the most problematic. The prototype feminist, defies her asshole father to bury her brother in accordance with cthtonic laws for the dead. She honors the law of the dead, and in doing so, honors the laws of her fathers, despite negating the law of her father.

Because both laws compete, because we have never even pretended coherence.

The event horizon is our failure to acknowledge the fact of our death. And both laws
are the fallow gravitational fissures ushering us toward it.

Perhaps entropy
is just living by laws,
and our true destiny
scales the meningeal sheath
to something outside our head.

According to reports, the bankrupt bank holds up to 450,000 pounds of uranium — called yellowcake — which can be upgraded to run nuclear plants and make nuclear weapons.

The stockpile is a hangover from a commodities trading contract undertaken before the Wall Street bank collapsed last year. Lehman filed for bankruptcy after the Bush administration refused to bail it out last September. After bankruptcy, it managed to sell its brokerage business to Barclays, leaving it saddled with $200 billion worth of sub-prime loans and yellowcake worth $20 million.

Liquidators have been trying to offload the stuff for months, but the price of uranium has fallen from $65 to $40 per pound because of the global recession, leaving Lehman’s yellowcake languishing in a variety of secure storage facilities, some of which are in Canada.

Yeh, it sure makes me feel safe knowing guys who would sell their mother have a uranium liquidation problem. Whaddya know tho?
At least SOME Yellowcake has turned up SOMEWHERE afterall.
Who’da thought it would be in the middle of a Bankruptcy Liquidation?

Was The New York Times too quick to suggest that Bill Clinton traded influence for donations? { No, chucklehead.}

An article in The New York Times on Jan. 31, 2008, though carefully worded, seemingly implied that former President Bill Clinton used political influence in Kazakhstan :roll: to allow Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, 51, to invest in what turned out to be a very profitable uranium venture in return for Giustra’s major donations to Clinton’s foundation. Other media outlets parroting the story in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as secretary of state have been less subtle, suggesting there was an outright quid pro quo.

The Times story is premised on the coincidence that Giustra :roll: and Clinton were both in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 6, 2005, exactly the time when Giustra was pressing his case to invest in several uranium properties there. Clinton was in Kazakhstan to announce a Clinton Foundation agreement enabling the government to buy low-cost HIV drugs. :roll: The Times seems to suggest that Clinton’s appearance with Giustra, together with his public praise of the president of Kazakhstan, somehow helped Giustra with his uranium deals…. :roll::roll:

So, about that 450,00O lbs of Lehman on-the-losing-end Uranium?
What the hell – leave some of it up in storage in Canada…
Maybe catnip will deal with it.
Crochet up a Lead Filament Sweater or something. And Catnip –
We’re awfully sorry we let the Big Dawg off the Porch a few years back.
But what of Clinton and his Market Shorting Uranium Bud now?
Of course, Numero Uno – before we see how this all played –
FELL Out, really – if it wasn’t such collusion…

::

1. Clinton got a LOT of money for that Foundation Scam of his..And Hillary, well,

Remember the fru-fru deal on conflict-of-interest disclosures for Madame Secretary and her gigolo husband negotiated with Congress when Hillary took over the reigns of Government from Obama like stealing candy from an ObamallamaLoveBaby was confirmed as Secretary of State?
Not a bad deal as we shall see. Short of a criminal investigation,
—-> No further required reporting of past deeds, all swept under the rug now, and not covered by Madame Secretary’s annual disclosure agreement moving forward.

The Clinton take on the Uranium Scam? 30 Million from Giustra alone .
But from the speculators?

The NYT-The investment banks wrote checks as well. The Bank of America foundation topped the banking list with a donation between $500,001 and $1 million. Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Sanford C. Bernstein all paid out between $100,001 and $250,000, Deutsche Bank’s and Goldman Sachs’s contributions were somewhat smaller, at between $50,001 and $100,000.

What a rogues gallery. Of course THAT reporting relied on all the Truth, Whole Truth, and NBTT we’ve come to expect from Teh Clinton. But seriously – hmmm-How much you think that motherfucker has $pread Off$hore?
And why do you think – among so many other scams™ – that Pushover Obama’s Criminal Division AAG at DOJ is Clinton Lawyer Lenny Breuer? Anybody want to gander why – among so many other scams™ – that the DOJ is slow walking the Deutsche and Swiss Bank disclosures?
::

Of ANY speculative Market, tho, – moreso even than BioTech – again, another Clinton Darling he’s hustling with that money laundering political shelter of his—-Uranium supply and demand is most closely linked to, and thus manipulated by Political / Governmental actors: the pretext, the premise, THE POSE, of legitimate Global rules and regs:: who gets licensed, who doesn’t. Who is awarded trade and contracts in the radioactive ore, who doesn’t.

Or for that matter, Who Bombs Iranian Nuclear Facilities,
who talks about it one day, and who does – or doesn’t another…..

Seems to me, Madame Clinton was quite the “Obliterate Iran” candidate back in the day…
Any idea of how that kind of talk- whether from Cheney or then Presidential Contender Clinton- Any idea of how that kind of talk can move speculative markets in a day? Or cover friendly high flyers in said markets before they tanked?

IThis path from the Bankrupt Lehman Brothers uranium receivership, who might as well try selling their stockpile now on Ebay now… It’s quite the sheen off the Silk Road that leads back to Clinton’s Own operative agreement with Energy Task Forcers during his Administration. In fairness, it’s been there all along, but there is no mistaking Clinton complicity then, – or Obama and Democratic complicity now , in what has brought the world to ruin: the American Global Plunder, what is best described by Naomi Klein as Disaster Capitalism.

Not a pretty sight any way you slice it, neither are the chaotic repercussions for the otherworldly, the Fallout having EVERYTHING to do with Marisacat’s commentary atop her post today, regarding the same Clintonesque M.O. (and Pose) adopted by Obama..

“””The president’s decisions are really going to be grounded in what’s best for the United States.”””

hmm.. I had not figured that last line out. How did I miss that?We are in such a FUCKING MESS from pursuing our own interests – or what they relentlessly sold to us as our “best interests”.

Clue: It did not work. Did. not. work. – marisacat

So true with Lehman, The Clintons, ALL radioactive “Markets” now, and the Entrepreneurial Use for Abuse of the the Intelligence and Defense community, which will be noted with specific regard to Clinton in this story before the winding road’s end.. It is something I believe is quite relevant to why Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff Panetta – a weak hack really – was named Director of the CIA, and why Obama is groveling before the CIA bureaucracy today.

Clinton and Giustra’s Uranium Deal, like Clinton’s Wall Street deregulation in 1999, sold as “best interests”, the Uranium under the cover of “noble” AIDS work- {what a shit! }– Banking Dereg and Globalization as “pro-consumer” and “jobs” and “competitiveness” -ALL Shit – —-Well, like the Lady says:Clue: It did not work. Did. not. work.

::

2. – The Uranium Market Collapsed

3. – Lehman Collapsed – Not a word yet on the involvement and extent of their “commodities contracts” in uranium that left them, now their creditors, in such a glowing position in BANKRUPTCY.

4. – The House of Cards,–
the result of CLINTONIAN BANKING DEREG-
the Global Economy has COLLAPSED.
Many perps and peeps of course, same M.O. though, Lehman Bros being just the beefy, pre-heart-surgery Clinton-sized Canary in the Uranium mine who overdosed.

5. —- > Obama, Clinton and the Democrats < —-
Are Protecting the Shyster Class: THEIR OWN, truly..
Not a whit of difference, Top to Bottom-feeder…

Today, the servicing of Kazakhstan’s foreign debt that will have to be repaid by 2009, has reached a level equivalent to 42% of its exports. In 2007, the country had a bill of US$4 billion to pay, tripling brutally to 12 billion as a result of the crisis. Kazakhstani banks, for their part, hold US$40 billion worth of foreign loans, a significant share of which now has to be refinanced at very high rates.{Snip}

Astana also set up a Stabilization Fund of US$4 billion to ensure liquidity, but this did not suffice to reassure foreign investors, especially when the Renaissance Capital’s Rencasia Index for Central Asia, which is dominated by Kazakh equities, collapsed in September 2008 after Lehman Brothers’ announced its bankruptcy.

On the societal level, the crisis not only affects the population of Kazakhstan, but that of the entirety of Central Asia. Over recent years, Kazakhstan has become the economic motor of the whole region.
::Any collapse of Kazakhstani investments in the region, especially via bilateral Investment Funds (Kazakh-Kyrgyz and Kazakh-Tajik), would be detrimental to the whole region, even more so at the present moment when Bishkek and Dushanbe both face huge energy shortages and the latter significant deficits of foodstuffs.
::Since the beginning of winter 2008, construction sector workers, mainly Central Asian immigrants, have not received any or only substantially reduced proportions of their salaries. As a result, they can either no longer send remittances home or are compelled to return to their countries without the hoped-for money, which has all of a sudden deprived hundreds of thousands of families of revenue at the onset of winter.

The analyst proceeds with familiar “opportunity in crisis” dumbass conclusions for Kazakhstan. Saying the crisis will allow them to “get rid” of the speculators. LOL. Maybe they could get rid of Clinton and his money grubbing pals for us too. Opportunity in Crisis my ass. The only Opportunity being generated in Crisis for most human beings is the “Opportunity” of trying to live though it.

Again, referencing Mcat’s piece today,
WRT to the constant sales- job of “Our Best Interests”….
The slop so easy thrown by the Big Pigs for the little pigs to play with..
Again, Clue: It did not work. Did. not. work

China has thrown Kazakhstan an economic lifeline in agreeing to lend the central Asian country $10bn and buy into a major oilfield.

The agreements, signed during a five-day visit by Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, to Beijing this week, underscores Chinese determination to exploit the global financial crisis to acquire foreign natural resources, especially energy.
::
China is already a major stake holder in the Kazakh oil industry and has built a pipeline linking an oilfield it owns in central Kazakhstan with its north-western Xinjiang province.

Dmitry Loukashov, executive director of oil and gas research at UBS, said: “Kazakhstan is not in a position to be picky. They need cash to defend the banking system. They don’t like it. It is enforced by the global financial crisis.”

China agreed in February to lend Russia $25bn in exchange for future oil supplies and has also bought energy reserves in Brazil, Venezuela and Angola this year.

BrilliantBill!
And so much for that imaginary line between Democrats and Republicans, and the simpleton memes: the Enlightened Altruists vs. the Imbecilic Self Serving Crooks and War Whores.

With regard to Khazakstan, Chevron Texaco Godfathers with Energy Pillaging White House Presidential Pals, and the radioactive debris left in their wake, there is this: The case of James Giffen and Clinton Admin Use for Abuse of the CIA, their dealings in Khazakstan.

And now the CIA has them all by the balls.
Panetta probably is parking cars at Langley most of the time.

Before anyone concludes this Giffin case is a Bush v Clinton Admin cockfight, or simply collateral damage from oil fielder litigants squabbling over their turf, Bush’s DOJ was forced into it By a Judge in Switzerland over – Hello – Fraud and Banking secrecy violations in Swiss Action against Kazakstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The complaint says that Mr. Giffen, and the merchant bank he operates, the Mercator Corporation, worked for the Kazakh government on its oil development plans dating back to 1992, generating $67 million in commissions and fees.

In 2000, the Swiss officials who first uncovered the bank transfers forwarded their information to the Justice Department for further investigation. The Swiss identified three American oil companies that they said made payments to the Kazakh government. The complaint against Mr. Giffen discussed only payments by the Mobil Oil Corporation, now part of ExxonMobil. The complaint did not allege any wrongdoing by Mobil.

Jim Giffen, a New York man accused of passing oil company bribes to Kazakhstan’s president, has asked a federal judge to determine whether U.S. intelligence agencies are purposely withholding documents that the defense says could exonerate him.

[If only his Defense counsel would spare us the song and dance about it. All part of the show, tho – BHHM}

In a letter on Giffen’s behalf, his lawyer, William Schwartz, also asks U.S. Judge William Pauley to determine whether his client – whose trial has yet to be scheduled five years after his arrest – has been denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. Earlier this month, Pauley suggested in court that the delays may have gone on too long.

The Giffen case has attracted attention as the largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution since the 1977 law took effect.

Not THAT much attention . Not enough for the Feds to, you know,
GET OFF THEIR ASS AND PROSECUTE EFFECTIVELY.

Thus, the case is Lost in the shuffle between Panetta at CIA and Breuer running the DOJ with Holder as figurehead- hardly a word on it now –
still ah “pending”- BURIAL, that is –
The case of James Giffen.

Last year’s mid-primary Times piece on Clinton in Khazakstan, for all their dish, had no bead on PRIOR Clinton Admin dealings with Nazarbajaeyev, much less any of the crucial money laundering angles revealed more clearly by the Economic Meltdown now confronting an alarmed public. The money laundering aspect of this is crucial – it is central to the original Swiss Referral to the DOJ on Giffen and the Clinton Cadres Khasakstan deals past and present. The money laundering aspect is crucial in its ability to conceal far more than the few tens of millions channeled into the private, (however publicly known) Clinton Presidential Foundation. Especially since Clinton’s posture towards Khazakstan and Energy Task Forcers during his Administration is hardly common knowledge.

Frankly, it’s a shame the Times didn’t mention the Giffen case in their article on Clinton’s mining deal in Khazakstan during the Primary.
Last Summer’s financial press reports on the Giffen case, while more forthcoming about Kazakhstan, Giffin , the CIA, and the 1990’s, they avoided anything on the Clinton Doorstep that might have disrupted their political fortunes. They breathed nothing of the political implications for Democrats, let alone the New Administration choices either McCain or Obama would be confronting with regard to prosecution of the malingering case:

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — In the mid-1990s, long before oil prices topped $60 a barrel, U.S. companies sought access to Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation that the U.S. State Department says will be among the world’s top 10 producers of crude by 2015.

First, they had to win approval from Jim Giffen, a New York investment banker who became an official in Kazakhstan’s government and held sway over its energy deals.

“You couldn’t go to a Kazakh minister, particularly if you were an American company, without going through Giffen,” says Ed Chow, who managed external affairs at Chevron Overseas Petroleum Ltd., a unit of San Ramon, California-based Chevron Corp.

::
In January, Giffen goes on trial in federal district court in New York in one of the largest overseas criminal bribery cases ever.

The four companies, which have since merged with rivals, haven’t been charged.

Giffen denies wrongdoing. His lawyers, Steven Cohen and William Schwartz, say in court papers that Giffen’s actions were condoned by the Central Intelligence Agency, White House and State Department to curry favor with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, 65.

See any coverage yet on the trial?
The one that was supposed to start in January?
The one that has been termed the “largest case of it’s kind” since the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was established in 1977?

Everybody okay with Lehman Brother’s lawyers accounting for their Uranium? Obama’s Admin getting to the bottom of it?

Believe it or not the length was edited!
I missed a close blockquote after #6 Kazakh equities, collapsed in September 2008 after Lehman Brothers’ announced its bankruptcy. it should shorten the scroll length at least …

hmm I am trying to find it… WSJ is supposed to have an article up tonight, that Oakland is hiring private cops, rather than city service cops, to patrol.. for one, the area where the 4 cops died. they are hiring International Services Inc. Which has quite a history as I recall.

Frankly they were congealing in front of me.. so I don’t know which one said it, but one said the WH is mounting a hard push back on Krugman. Driving home, apparently, that if we were to follow his idea of “nationalising” the banks, it would mean a “Dow at 3000″.

They Promoted his shit-on-Krugman with 20 comments. Unbelieveable. LOL. Also that there ever was a time mcat “back when Al Rodgers was sane…” Really? Holy Hell. :grin: LOL.
But seriously, right you are- The guy is fuckin :shock:

I’ve seen a lot of political gush on the web, but Al Rogers
peeing himself on a daily basis over Obama is right up there…
He’s fuckin whacked.
,
And the Obama propaganda is so over the top it seems desperate.
As is Markos Admins promoting it.
I forget what role Rodgers plays, he is somehow in the distribution chain for Obama PR but clearly nutball with his distribution. Wading into his diaries are like a one-way ticket to Weirdoville. ~ Jeezis.
LOL.

well it was an awfully long time ago that Al Rodgers was sane. Or appeared sane. Don’t recall that he ever detailed it but it seemd he had a background, somehow or other, in NY media. TV maybe. he seems attuned to how news cycles run… nuances of how they drive stories that are manufactured.

But it was a long time ago.. and most people over there proved no match for the orchestrated hate on, love ins of being accepted/rejected to where you fell in the Dkos earth bound stratosphere.

If you give immunity to those who were just following orders – which he said occurred within legal boundaries – just exactly how are you going to prosecute those who wrote those orders (i.e. the legal opinions justifying torture) that you’ve already declared to be legal at the time? Because if you do declare those orders to be illegal and don’t prosecute all involved, you’ve endorsed illegality.

I don’t see this going anywhere beyond hand slaps for Yoo et al. Bybee might be impeached because he’s a federal judge or he may be sanctioned by the bar but, realistically, what else can happen?

Frankly, Obama should be less “worried about the politicization” (which merely means he’s running scared from the right wing and those in his party who don’t support prosecutions) and should be more concerned with upholding his oath of office.

Meanwhile, Gibbs was dancing the cha cha around questions during the briefing.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC) is, ostensibly, one such organisation that has thrown down the gauntlet to future generations to learn from the mistakes of history rather than be doomed to repeat them. By “confronting antisemitism, hate and terrorism, promoting human rights and dignity, standing with Israel, defending the safety of Jews worldwide and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust”, the group sets out to rid the globe of the scourge of racial hatred, yet has managed to become entangled in just such an ugly, sectarian clash in the heart of downtown Jerusalem.

Thanks to the SWC’s insistence on constructing an ironically named Museum of Tolerance atop a Muslim cemetery, the organisation has driven yet another nail into the coffin of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land. The SWC claims that the museum will be a beacon “that speaks to the world and confronts today’s important issues, like … human dignity, responsibility, and promoting unity”, despite refusing to take a dose of its own medicine when it comes to the contentious location of the complex.

Just how completely fucked up do you have to be to think this is okay?

TAPPER: Is the president of the belief, or in possession of information, that members of the Bush administration who formulated these interrogation policies broke the law?

GIBBS: I — again, I think I’d point you to the comments that the president made today that a determination of who — of whether a law was broken or who broke a law was not a determination that would be made inside the confines of the White House. It would rightly be made inside the confines of the Justice Department.

TAPPER: I would be the fourth of four that has pointed out that there is at least some rhetorical change between what the administration has said in the past on this question of prosecution and what the president said today. And I’m just wondering what change?

GIBBS: The president was clear and I would go with what…

TAPPER: He hasn’t used language like that in the past. He hasn’t said…

GIBBS: Well, I — I — I don’t — I think the president — and we’ll pull it for you specifically. I mean…

TAPPER: We’ve all read it.

GIBBS: Excellent, we’re ahead of the game. Never mind. I — I think when the president states that people are above the rule of law that he expects that the laws of the United States of America will be upheld.

TAPPER: But has he — I guess the question is: Has he learned anything since those previous comments that make his language…

As Congress returns to begin an intense debate over reshaping the nation’s $2.2 trillion health-care system, prominent left-leaning organizations and liberal House members are issuing a warning to their Democratic allies: Don’t cave on us.

The early skirmishing — essentially amounting to friendly fire — is perhaps the clearest indication yet of the uphill battle President Obama faces in delivering on his promise to make affordable, high-quality care available to every American.

Disputes over whether to create a new government-sponsored insurance program to compete with private companies shine a light on the intraparty fissures that may prove more problematic than any partisan brawl.

More than 70 House Democrats recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan.

“It’s way too early” to abandon what it considers a central plank in health reform, said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. He said the organization pulled out of the bipartisan Health Reform Dialogue because it feared its friends in the coalition were sacrificing core principles too soon. “You don’t make compromises with your allies.” …snip…

Okay, this is interesting: SEIU chief Andy Stern is now openly venting frustration with Obama for not doing anything to help push the Employee Free Choice Act.

Stern’s comments about Obama are buried in this Washington Post report on a meeting Stern held with the paper’s editorial board yesterday. Stern and another top SEIU official said Obama’s other priorities had left the unions alone in their quest for the 60 Senate votes they need to break the GOP filibuster.

“We respect that we have a job to do to line up enough votes without him,” Stern said. “I don’t think there’s any question that he says there will be a vote, that this bill’s time has arrived and he will do whatever is in his power to bring this home. We just aren’t there yet.”

Despite the polite tone, that’s a surprisingly direct shot at Obama. Stern says that Obama, who supports EFCA but hasn’t made it a big priority, has done nothing at all to corral support. …snip…

More than 200,000 people have been removed from Pennsylvania’s voter rolls since the presidential election in November — 53,000 of them in Allegheny County. {Pittsburgh – BHHM}

The reduction is part of a regular purge of registrations for people who haven’t voted in at least five years, or the last two presidential elections. The purge helped registered Republicans narrow Democrats’ 1.2-million voter registration advantage by 30,000 voters.

So.

Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, hav […]

As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check's Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclu […]

The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest the organization profits from supplying aborted […]

In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from the St. Johns Bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell's plan […]

On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Drake, a former Senior Executive at the National Security Agency, says he was targeted by the NSA because he exposed that the agency had intel that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks and because he blew the whistle on a massive secret surveillance program aimed at Americans

James K. Gailbraith says, IMF is demanding a substantial reduction of the Greek debt to participate in any new deal and meanwhile German law makers are refusing to approve a new bail-out without the IMF

James K. Galbraith a member of the working group advising the former finance minister Varoufakis on 'Plan B' says there were great impositions imposed on the Greek government including certain procedures that removed control from the government and placed them in the hands of creditor institutions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week's first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying "I'm not a debater."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will unveil on Monday the final version of his plan to tackle greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, kicking off what is expected to be a tumultuous legal battle against federal environmental regulators by the coal industry and its political allies.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.